Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Jonathan Earl Peck in The Most Deserving

The witty The Most Deserving described the travails of a small-town granting agency that has $20,000 to award to a deserving artist. Except that there aren't many artists around, and no one can agree on a definition of deserving. The closest thing to a real visionary is Everett Whiteside, an African-American who makes sculpture out of trash and seems to be the real thing, a guy touched by the genuine wonder of creation. But he is also a crazed, uncontrolled loser who takes Tea Party paranoia over the top as he fulminates about the government having crawled up his ass (and he means it literally). The role is a gift for an actor, and in the Denver Center Theatre Company production Jonathan Earl Peck seized it with both hands, rambling, ranting, muttering, conniving and endowing every crazy moment with conviction and passion.